Indonesia

Amid rice fields and villages, along the furrowed tracks and potholed roads in the Tapanuli region in rural North Sumatra, Indonesia, more than 85 per cent of people are farmers. Many are caught in the enslaving trap of debt to landowners who demand high rent for the use of land, which they need to grow […]

Ria Limbong received a scholarship from Living Faith Lutheran Congregation to study in Australia at Grace College. Read her personal story and see what great progress she has made in her English. Australia…WOW! That was the first thing that stuck in my head when I knew I would come to Australia. I never thought that […]

Some four years ago Pastor Rob Erickson was involved in assisting the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (HKBP) Seminary in Pematang Siantar, Sumatra, with English education. Pastor Rob was then the pastor of Living Faith congregation, Murrumba Downs in Queensland. Following discussions with Dr Willem Simamarta, from the HKBP, about standards of English in Sumatra, a […]

This was one of the thoughts that first came to mind when Julian Pfitzner was asked to teach a three week English course for students at a seminary in Indonesia. Julian takes up the story… On 12 July, Glenice Hartwich asked me, if I and someone else, would be interested in taking a three week […]

Men shuffled slowly into the church and sat on one side puffing on their cigarettes, while women and children sat on the other side staring back at me with wry smiles as I sat facing them from the front of the church. Together with the pastor of the Lumban Julu congregation and Pastor Rein Justin, […]

Next to the airport road is one of the cemeteries. Like all the others this one is not really a cemetery but a mass grave. Around 2,500 bodies were unceremoniously shovelled into this one in the rush to stave of disease. There are no markers. There was barely time to dig the pits and bury […]

Those of us who have travelled internationally know the excitement of visiting a different country, meeting its people and learning the culture. This was the experience of Indonesian teachers Flutner Purba and Yentie Simanjuntak, who spent four weeks in Brisbane recently. The visit of the teachers from the Huria Kristen Batak Protestan (a partner church […]

Mention the word ‘Indonesia’ and many people would not associate it with the word ‘Christian’. However, it is estimated that there are over 21 million Christians in Indonesia (and growing), making up over 10% of the population. This includes nearly 4 million people belonging to twelve different Lutheran church groups in Indonesia, mostly located in […]

Large granite rocks and cement were used by many people to begin to lay the foundations for new classrooms for two schools of the Gereja Kristen Protestan Simalungan (GKPS) church in Indonesia on 13 June 2007. On a day filled with travel on crowded roads bordered by green rice paddies, colourful Batak dancing, energetic and […]

Thursday 11 January in Perth airport. It’s been such a long time, it seems, since I saw the children of Debora. I left there in late April, 2006, after my second visit and hoped to get back straight after Synod in Toowoomba – but it didn’t happen – it wasn’t God’s time. Sometimes it’s hard […]